Carrie James is a Research Director and Principal Investigator at Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Her research interests include young people's engagement with the new digital media; conceptions of trust held by youth today; moral and ethical development; gender issues; and conceptions of success, failure, and "good work" among youth and adults. Since arriving at Project Zero in 2003, Carrie has worked with Howard Gardner and colleagues on The GoodWork Project, an initiative focused on excellence, engagement, and ethics at work, in school, and--more recently--at play.

Carrie currently directs the GoodPlay Project, which is funded by the MacArthur Foundation and led by Howard Gardner. The GoodPlay Project is investigating the ethical character of young people's activities in the new digital media, including online games, social networking sites, blogs, and other virtual communities. Our broad aim in this research is to discover how young people are changing because of digital media; our particular concern is with the ethical issues at stake. We are studying how digital youth conceive of and manage five ethically-tinged issues--identity, privacy, ownership and authorship, credibility, and participation--as they participate in virtual environments. In addition to our research, the GoodPlay Team is working with Project New Media Literacies at MIT to develop curricular activities that encourage reflection about digital ethics.

Carrie also directs the Trust & Trustworthiness Project, which is funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and led by Howard Gardner. The Trust project explores how young people think about trust today, and how that might compare to earlier times or earlier generations. We seek to understand the role that trust plays when young people consider their goals and carry out their schoolwork, develop relationships, participate in different communities, and take on new roles and responsibilities--particularly civic ones--in the broader society. The ultimate goal of this project is to develop interventions to help youth cultivate their own trustworthiness and assess that of their fellow citizens, information sources, political leaders and institutions.

Carrie's past research at Project Zero included involvement the GoodWork Project's studies of higher education, medicine, and philanthropy. Among the themes explored in these studies were:

• the missions and strategies of exemplary colleges and universities, and their alignment with the values and goals of their undergraduate students;
• the dilemmas faced by exemplary physicians as they strive to do "good work" in the American health care system;
• the meanings of "good work" in traditional philanthropy and the emerging field of venture philanthropy

Carrie has an MA and a Ph.D. in Sociology from New York University, and is the proud mom of a fiercely independent little girl.

Publications

James, C. with Davis, K., Flores, A., Francis, J.M., Pettingill, L., Rundle, M. & Gardner H. (2008.) "Young people, ethics, and the new digital media: A synthesis from the GoodPlay Project." White paper for the MacArthur Foundation Digital Media & Learning Initiative.

James, C. (2007.) "Beyond the gender stereotype: Responsibilities to self and to others." In H. Gardner (Ed.), Responsibility at work. Jossey-Bass.

James, C. & Marshall, P. (2006.) "Journeys in venture philanthropy and institution building." in W. Damon and S. Verducci, (Eds.), Taking philanthropy seriously: Beyond noble intentions to responsible giving. Indiana University Press.

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